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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To be annoyed about single dads?

95 replies

Winosaurus · 04/09/2017 19:37

Today at the playground yet again there was an overly friendly display to the single dad of a child in my DDs class. He raises his son alone (which is of course admirable) but all I hear from the other mums is what a hero he is for doing it... am I missing something? How is he any different to the several single mothers raising children in the same class?
It seems dads who are left "holding the baby" so to speak, are hero worshipped and thought of as extraordinary for simple being a lone parent, yet the single mums I know are offered no such praise? Why is this?
Also from experience I have seen/heard negative stereotyping about single mums as if they somehow chose it as a lifestyle decision or have brought it on themselves (when in reality the single mums I know are mid-30s divorcees). But yet again single dads are given the sympathy vote and "how awful for him that the mother doesn't have/want custody".

AIBU to be irritated by this?

OP posts:
FoofFighter · 04/09/2017 20:03

YANBU

I hate the way ANY dad is fawned over at groups and the school gates etc. women really do themselves no favours sometimes.

I also object to men claiming the title of single father when they don't have residency of the DC and see them once a week.

Rockandrollwithit · 04/09/2017 20:04

My DH will shortly be a stay at home dad through choice. He is treated like some kind of saint 😒

SpikeGilesSandwich · 04/09/2017 20:04

We have a bloke who comes to baby group sometimes and none of the other mums speak to him. I know him a bit through my husband, he's not a single dad, is very much married but he is quite good looking, I've noticed I get sideways glances when I sit next to him or talk to him although I'm very careful not to appear "flirty", it's pathetic.
He's just being a parent like the rest of us, why should he be treated better or worse?

DeadGood · 04/09/2017 20:05

I agree with Urubu

JemmyBloocher · 04/09/2017 20:06

I used to work in London and fly home on Friday night to Scotland (dh was the only one who could get child friendly hours and we wanted the kids to be in Scotland). I'd get texts from friends all week long about how wonderful my dh was, how he's been seen hugging the kids at the school gate and isn't that great. What a bloody hero. When I was single parenting them in the south of England for years- not a bloody word. Sickening.

PelvicFloorClenchReminder · 04/09/2017 20:08

YANBU I'm right there with you OP.

Sugarcrystal2002 · 04/09/2017 20:09

Spike hubby found groups the same when dd was smaller and I was working. He felt like the mums were very cliquey and ignored him.

godconfusion · 04/09/2017 20:09

YANBU

It's bloody unfair

Along with all the "don't punish your child because you don't like your child's dad" quotes... how about one that's "don't punish your child's mum by refusing to see your own child"

It's always the mom stopping contact, never a man refusing to step up.., oh no Angry

MrsDustyBusty · 04/09/2017 20:10

He felt like the mums were very cliquey and ignored him.

Oh dear, failing in their womanly duties to include everyone whether they want to or not.

tinypop4 · 04/09/2017 20:11

yanbu. My husband is regularly told what a wonderful dad he is by strangers for taking his own kids to the park for a couple of hours. It's weird.

NeedsAsockamnesty · 04/09/2017 20:11

Awhile back I watched a single dad get fawned over in a bus que people giving him assistance left right and centre his kid is 7 and he had one bag of shopping and a scooter (I know dad and kid) whilst a heavily pregnant mum with 3 under 5's got shoved out of the way.

Wherearemymarbles · 04/09/2017 20:13

I assume its women doing the fawning so the question is why?

Maybe when they see a man doing all the things their useless lay about husbands should be doing they think ooh wish i had a husband like that.
And go all swooney ! 😍

clarts · 04/09/2017 20:13

Not from my experience, I'm a single dad and have been since my ex passed away from breast cancer 7 years ago.

My son was 7 when she died and I've never felt so alone or without support,

We had split up 2 years before that due to her having an affair with a work colleague. I saw my son on weekends and every other night during the week during those 2 years.

But to go from that to having him full time, while working full time and having to deal with his and my own grief was the hardest time of my life.

I was still struggling to come to terms with her cheating whilst trying to put her on a pedestal for his benefit.

The SAHM, playground mafia we're hardly welcoming

ChickenBhuna · 04/09/2017 20:13

I know what you mean op. Your post reminded me of the time my dh told a doctor that he worked with vulnerable adults for a living , she called him an angel.

I work with vulnerable children in a specialist environment. I've never been called an angel! My dh was rather insulted by the fact that as a man in a caring profession he is treated as special , like it's really so unusual that a man can care enough about people to do such work.

PigletWasPoohsFriend · 04/09/2017 20:13

Interesting, because all the dad's I know who go alone (with kids) to play groups get shunned for being different.

Yep that was my DH experience.

Anditstartsagain · 04/09/2017 20:19

It's rife where we live a friends dp has just taken over the school run when she changed job 3 different people told her how good of him it is to do it FOR HER!

I frequently am told i'm very lucky dp 'lets' me get out to work out twice a week no one mentions how lucky he is I 'let' him out 3 nights a week.

Fucking annoying for me and DP finds it offensive which is unlike him he usually never gets offended over anything.

Wellyboots86 · 04/09/2017 20:19

As a newly single dad I have to say yanbu as dads should be seen as equal to mums however in my experience I have had the opposite reaction. People asking if I'm not working today or if I'm "babysitting" today.

Anybody, man or woman, that has to be a single parent deserves credit as they have to be both sides of the coin but that doesn't mean one sex is inferior or more heroic than the other imo.

Gender roles do play a small part and there are things I've had to learn to do that would be seen as "Mummy jobs" but I've always wanted to be a dad and do as much as humanly possible regardless of what the correct "gender" is for that job.

I don't know one end of a drill from the other but managed to bake a birthday cake a couple of weeks ago (so much for mummy and daddy jobs) and I feel everyone should be on an equal platform

Winebomb · 04/09/2017 20:20

YANBU

I only know 2 single dads, one a widow and one has a horrible ex, both of them are heros because of how they deal with their situations. Not because they have a penis.

I do think this is part of the problem though, single dads aren't usually by choice, which is sad, but the courts are in favour on the mother.

Even though my friends crazy ex caused the marriage to break down (affair and wracked up loads of debts), when he spoke to a solicitor to get majority custody she basically laughed at him. (I was there and got very, well let's say cross) but that's the way the courts work. (She doesn't work and lives off the few grand he gives her a month and CTC for all 4 kids, he just recently moved out if his dads into a rental house).

PinkHeart5913 · 04/09/2017 20:22

Spike My dh had that too, I never really liked baby groups but dh wanted to take the dc and most times all other mothers ignored him! Dh did manage to find a dad's group in the end which he now attends

My brother was a single dad from when my nephew was 3 days old, the mother and has not seen the child since. When my nephew wanted a sleep over at school the mums of the other 2 children wouldn't let the children sleep over because they were " not comfortable with just a male parent"

all the questions my brother got at the school gates about where the mother was like he'd buried her under the patio or something were ridiculous, when my nephew was younger I use to pick him up now and then and got the same questions oh so where is x mum?

So in some ways I do think when people see men with there children or see single dads they do treat them differently to how they would a women.

Yanbu though every paren regardless of sex should be treated the same way

Manclife · 04/09/2017 20:26

This reply has been deleted

Message deleted by MNHQ. Here's a link to our Talk Guidelines.

Writerwannabe83 · 04/09/2017 20:34

My DH takes DS abroad twice a year without me and he says that women are all over him, telling him what a wonderful dad he is, how lucky DS is and how much they admire him for being on holiday alone with his child.

It really annoys him and says he doesn't understand it seeing as lots of single mothers holiday alone with their children yet because he does it it makes him some kind of superhuman, fantastic parent.

Walkingtowork · 04/09/2017 20:35

My DH was welcomed with open arms at all the baby groups, as have all the dads I've seen at groups.

I'm now a single mum, and no one's outraged with him Sad

ginswinger · 04/09/2017 20:37

I dunno about this.... I'm a single mum and I have been on the receiving end of some lovely compliments about my child rearing skills, from both sexes.

Notevilstepmother · 04/09/2017 20:50

I think you mean to be annoyed at society and some women's attitudes to single dads.

It's not the single dads wanting praise for getting on with it in general. Nor are the single dads the ones being negative about single mums. They probably don't want the extreme choice of everyone fawning over them at one group or everyone ignoring them at another.

It's attitudes to dads in general that piss me off.

Did you see the thread yesterday where someone's sister thought their dad wasn't good enough to put the DC to bed? Ffs.

Flymetothemoon1234 · 04/09/2017 20:52

Ynbu. My parents fawn over my DH if he does something as basic as remembering to feed 1 of our kids. I do all the same stuff and more (breastfeeding day & night, deal with any issues at nursery, pay nursery bill, buy all the clothes etc etc) and not a word from them.